Marie Avinov; Pilgrimage Through Hell: An Autobiography
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. [10], 275, [3] pages. Cover has wear, scuffs, dings, and some soiling. Prince David Chavchavadze (May 20, 1924 – October 5, 2014) was an Georgian author and a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer of Georgian-Russian origin. Chavchavadze was a descendant of a prominent Georgian noble family and the Imperial Russian dynasty. His father, Prince Paul, was a writer and translator, and an émigré in the United Kingdom, and then the United States. Chavchavadze served during World War II as liaison for the U.S. Army Air Force Lend-Lease supply operations to the Soviet Union. After the war, he entered Yale University. He spent more than two decades of his career as a CIA officer in the Soviet Union Division. After his retirement, Chavchavadze specialized in tracing the nobility of Imperial Russia and authored The Grand Dukes (1989). He also published Crowns and Trenchcoats: A Russian Prince in the CIA (1989) based on his CIA experiences. Derived from a Kirkus review: Based on her earlier diaries and obviously also very well remembered now many years later, this is the story of a woman whose life was for the most part spent in actively surviving thirty odd years of the Lenin-Stalin regime. An aristocrat by birth, at eighteen Marie refused to be presented at court, shortly thereafter married Nika Avinov. With the Revolution both she and Nika were under the constant surveillance of the Cheka (later the G.P.U., still later the N.K.V.D.); Nika was arrested eight times; she was finally given ""Free Deportation"" to central Asia and was in a small village there when the Germans took over in 1941. Finally with her friend of the late years, she secured German escort to Berlin, and ultimately a visa to Paris and the U.S. where after a few years she received her husband's last message just before he was shot. . . Another authentic testament of exceptional resistance and courage, justifiably emotional and, under the circumstances not overstated. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Marie Avinov, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Cheka, Repression, Exile, Nika Avinov, Kremlin, Russian Royalty, Romanovs, Imperial Russia
[Book #76640]
Price: $37.50